Renovo Wooden Bicycle

We were surprised by this wood bicycle displayed in the airport in Portland, Oregon. First, we thought of the cardboard bike Stephanie posted last week. Then, we realized this bicycle is a thing of beauty. Here's a better photograph...

It's made by Renovo, and there's a small manifesto about the material properties of wood on their website. If you haven't seen the bridge in Norway that's made entirely out of wood, take a look.

The gist is this: the way we typically use wood -- in large chunks clumsily nailed together -- doesn't take advantage of its incredible strength. In fact, the Renovo bicycle is hollow. We'd like to see some of this engineering know-how put to work. Maybe the simple 2 x 4 stud can be improved with similar techniques.